Prior-art wireless communication systems have employed a special “slow-power-up” power control technique to prevent power spikes on the reverse channel from the mobile unit to the base station during the initiation of a call and during a handoff. Recently, “soft” handoffs have become increasingly popular, because of the advantages they can provide. In a soft handoff, the mobile unit initially monitors more than one base station simultaneously in order to facilitate a handoff to the base station that can provide the best signal quality.
Unfortunately, monitoring more than one prior-art base station can result in conflicting power-control information being sent to the mobile unit, sometimes causing the mobile unit to decrease power when, in fact, all the monitored base stations are signaling the mobile unit to increase power!
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus for mitigating power-control errors during a soft handoff in a wireless communication system.